WHAT NOW ?

Lost my 20 yr. old son, Erick, to suicide a couple weeks after 9/11. My sister, JoAnna, a resident
of Manhattan, to lung cancer in 2007 - the dust. Erick was profoundly affected by the 10 hrs. of TV that Tuesday morning, afternoon, evening.

I missed 9/11 completely - my son's loss stopped all processes for two yrs. and for the next 8 yrs. I accepted the myth. I began working with the grief and at the 10th anniversary I began to work with the post traumatic stress/shock of finding him a few minutes too late to save him - a horrific shock and guilt and remorse and pain. I have a 5 yr. old boy now - the result of the prayers I said over and over while working on Erick as he died.

The point of this personal history is to tell you that I came to this discussion of the events of 9/11 with an open mind and somewhat pure in that I stopped TV about 1999; have read the truthers and the debunkers with as
much effort on both sides for the 1st 6 months. I try my best to stick to what seems beyond doubt:
The symmetrical free fall of WTC7, the testimony of the many explosions, the extreme heat, the sudden and complete destruction of everything, and the demeanor of those presenting
evidence - I find David Chandler to possess that quality of integrity that inspires, if not
belief, trust. I find the detractors who use insulting or leading adjectives
and attack the person rather than the evidence presented, tell us of feelings and fear. I use this example because
of all those I've read, he stands out to me as trustworthy. The non-verbal marks of deceit and ethics are intuitive - Ryan, Griffith, Cole, Mandrin, Harrit, Hoffman, Thompson, Shepard, and that guy with the SCAD thesis and those young kids of "Loose Change" - These people have the feel, and look of integrity. Compare to the ad salesmen of "Popular Mechanics" - turn down the sound and watch that youtube discussion, or the characters of wealth, power,and government - and Norm Chomsky's waving hands are the sign of denial/refusing to examine a feeling which hurts deeply.

In another 10 yrs. these events of 12 yrs. past are going to be quite clear, the cold eye of
history always finds truth. But, the opportunity of forgiveness may be past.

We now distrust the rule-of-law, the Bill of Rights, and
we have sown the seeds of rot in democratic government - young people are
disinterested, dissenters shamed, anger and fear of each other stifle conversation/debate.
America's longest war in it's 12th yr., innocent children killed every day, 60,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan this morning, 4 billion spent every week, and we now embrace torture as an American institution - and most ominous of all - this war does not have a paragraph in this mornings local newspaper. An elephant is growing in our living room. Until we can talk about these things amongourselves with courage, conviction, hope, intelligence, and tolerance we can expect things will become far worse for us and the rest of the world. What's on your mind? We are still a democracy and we all have a right and an obligation to be heard. The suspension of Amendments is a real threat to freedom but I don't think jailing "bad" thinkers is an option, yet.

So, what now? I think, to break this log jam, we must adopt the South Africa approach of "Truth and Reconciliation". Amnesty for those willing to come forward with the truth. There are thousands of people - good Americans - who participated at some level in the crimes of 9/11, and desperately want to live in freedom again. These people must be encouraged by those of us who espouse forgiveness rather than justice, peace rather than conflict, anger must be felt and forgiveness experienced. 9/11 has been occurring with sickening regularity throughout human history. This event has the distinction of being shared by the entire planet. Because of the universal trauma we all feel, this presents an opportunity never before seen. We must begin to respond with a different approach - Mandela and The Bishop showed us the way, we can do this in America as they did it in So. Africa.